Don’t Cheat Yourself!

Credit: Bill Gillespie

A while back one of my reps booked a $900,000 order. He was over the moon with excitement. I was too. It was one of the largest orders our company had ever seen.

It was a kit. Our customer was rolling out a new benefits package. Locations were being enrolled on a schedule so we were producing and shipping packets based on that timing. It would take nine months to complete.

We agreed to invoice progressively. Each month we would submit charges for the work performed. Our rep would enjoy billings of approximately $100,000 each month for nine months.

Once the high fives subsided I met with the rep. “Use this sale to get ahead,” I suggested. “You can change the way your customer portfolio looks if you double down while this big project is in production. You’re already guaranteed a good year. Keep selling and let client service manage production.”

He nodded that he agreed but he didn’t heed the advice. He turned himself into a production coordinator. He didn’t need to worry about billing or commissions. His selling activity decreased. He did the opposite of what I advised.

This is what it meant to his billing. In the first month he billed a good mix of work plus the first $100,000 installment. It was his best month on record.

Month two was similar. Month three was smaller than the first two. By month four he had no billing outside of the monthly installment. It was the same for months five through nine.

John (not his real name) ignored repeated pleas and warnings from me. I cautioned him that he was forgetting his other customers. I remined him that he was a commission sales rep. His income depended on writing orders.

Nothing mattered. He could not be motivated. All he could see was the big sale and the ongoing billing. He was like a speeding driver ignoring the stopped traffic in front of him.

We wrapped up the last month of the project. The rep had spent nine months hanging out in the plant. He immersed himself in details that his project coordinator could have managed. He ignored his other clients and they found new sources. His total billings held up but he failed to earn anything new.

Month ten was a disaster. He barely invoiced five figures. Months eleven and twelve were equally as bad. He had wasted almost a year. He could have spent it getting ahead. Instead, he put his feet up and cruised on a sale that had already been made.

I adjusted his draw. He was livid. He asked how he was supposed to live on his new income.

He never recovered as a salesman and left the printing business a few months later. He sold the biggest order of his life and eighteen months later he was gone. He turned success into failure.

Pro Tip: Sales decline doesn’t come without warning. You can see it in inquiries. You can see it in appointments or lack of. You can see it in call backs. Those things happen before your billings dry up.

This guy ignored every warning. He was so excited by this one monster sale that he quit seeing his other clients. His quote activity fell but he didn’t notice. He was managing production details. He became a one client guy without asking “what will I do when this project is done?”

A big sale provides a great opportunity to get ahead. The big sale is a bonus not a staple. If he had continued proper sales behavior he would have grown volume.